The Business Litigation Blog

Chipotle Sues R&B Singer

Thursday, March 13, 2014

While Chipotle has been named a defendant in several large scale
lawsuits (including a class action suit related to employment law),
this time the company has filed a breach of contract lawsuit
against Grammy award-winning R&B singer Frank Ocean.

According to the complaint, filed last Friday in Los Angeles
County Court, Chipotle entered a contract with Ocean when they
signed him on to write a song to accompany one of their promotional
videos. While the entire contract was for $425,000, Ocean accepted
an advance of $212,500 in July of last year.

Chipotle maintains that Ocean agreed to furnish the fast food
chain with a track for their video by last August (when the company
instead received a letter from Ocean’s legal team stating that he
was not going to be participating in the project), however Ocean
has stated that the company misled him as to the terms of the deal.
His team alleges that the original deal merely called for him to
encourage sustainable food sources, and that Chipotle’s name and
logo was not referenced during the primary discussions surrounding
the campaign. According to Ocean, Chipotle told him this was
intentional and that he would play a major role in the final
advertising decisions.

Chipotle denies these allegations, instead claiming that when
the original advertisement was shown to Ocean, it was not quite
finished, and the logo and Chipotle plug weren’t yet included.

So far, there has only been a complaint filed. However, we will
continue to cover the details of this breach of contract case as
they occur.

The Patterson Law Firm handles a wide variety of breach of
contract cases. To learn more about the services we offer visit pattersonlawfirm.com or call
312.223.1699.

This entry was written by Rose Gregory,
posted on Thursday, March 13, 2014
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